Spaniards earn half as much as people in US

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Spaniards earn more than three times the global median income of $2,920 (€2,120), new research shows, but still pocket a median of only $7,284 a year.

The face-to-face research from Gallup puts Spaniards a long way behind the world's top earners Norway, where the median per capita income is $19,308 per year.

They are also some way behind Sweden where individual earnings are a median $18,632 and Luxembourg, where this figure is $18,418.

Rounding out the top five biggest earners are Denmark and Finland.

But the Spanish median salary of $7,824 is still far more than the median global individual income of just $2,920.

Spain in 24th place in the Gallup survey of 131 countries, just behind Singapore and one place ahead of Taiwan.

The median per capita salary in Portugal is $5,519, and in Italy it is $6,874.

In the US, this figure is $15,480 and the UK the median income per capita is $12,339.

The lowest median salaries in the countries surveyed by Gallup were the African nations of Liberia ($118), Burundi ($129) and Mali ($165).

The Gallup research is based on self-reported data from at least 2,000 people in each country surveyed.

The survey approach is in contrast to other measures of wealth including per capita gross domestic product or gross national income, as many analysts do not believe these give an accurate picture of well-being at the individual and household level.

Using the per capita gross domestic product model, Luxembourg is the richest country in the world with an average income of $91.388. With the gross national income model, Norway is the world's richest country with an average income of $66,960.

Individual and household incomes from data aggregated from 2006 to 2012 were included in the Gallup research.

The median household salary for Spain in the period covered was $21,959.